Losing the first game of a season is never easy, but Monday night's game has had some deep repercussions for the Jets.
They've been roundly criticized for their offensive performance, gotten some comeuppance for losing their first game after talking a lot this summer and been forced to say goodbye to their massive nose tackle for the second straight season. They've even had to deal with some harsh words from the franchise's icon.
Joe Namath moved into the digital age and savaged the team over Twitter and YouTube for their performance in the opener. The video is pretty fantastic, featuring barking dogs and ringing phones in the background of his scathing words for the Jets.
It's all starting to get to be a bit ridiculous. Everyone has come to a grudging acceptance of the fact that our world needs to blow up every event well beyond reasonable margins to fill the ever growing need for content to fill our screens, pages, iPads and whatnot, but the reaction to this Jets game has gone well beyond the reasonable.
The Jets deserve much of the criticism, but let's take a breath and remember a couple of things before we continue to scorch the Earth around team headquarters. The most important is that there are still 15 more games to play this season. One bad loss doesn't close any doors and it shouldn't send you out any windows. And it wasn't even that bad a loss. The Jets lost by one to a very good team while playing as bad an offensive football game as you could hope to see. In most cases that would be used as a glimmer of hope, but these Jets don't get to cling to moral victories.
They'll need some actual victories, which makes it rather nice to see the game with the Patriots rapidly approaching. Not because the Pats will represent a walk in the park, of course, but because beating them would allow the Jets to make the opening loss a non-factor as they approach the rest of the season.
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The incredible amount of attention paid to the Jets this offseason and the opening of the new stadium imbued Monday night's game with a significance that went well beyond the actual value of a game that represents 1/16th of a season. Getting to game two and, especially, winning game two will provide a chance for everyone to remember just how much still remains unknown about the 2010 football season.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
